Colorado State counting on defense to step up this fall

Linebacker Aaron Davis, one of six returning starters on the CSU defense this fall, tackles Fresno State running back Robbie Rouse during a 2012 game at Hughes Stadium.(Photo: Troy Babbitt/USA TODAY Sports)

LAS VEGAS – While the CSU offense was putting up record numbers last season, the defense took a bit of a beating, giving up an average of 416.3 yards a game.

The Rams still managed to win eight games, including the New Mexico Bowl. But they were involved in far too many track meets, giving up more than 40 points in five games.

With star running back Kapri Bibbs off to the NFL and four starters gone on the offensive line, it’s time for the defense and its six returning starters to make its mark.

“We definitely want to step up this year,” senior linebacker Aaron Davis said Tuesday at the Mountain West media days. “We have a lot of experience coming back at all positions. … We have a lot of experience all around, and as a defense, we do need to try to every game consistently stop the other team.”

That often wasn’t the case last year during an 8-6 season that was the Rams’ best since 2002, when they last won a MW title. CSU’s defense allowed 42 points twice and 45 once in games it still managed to win, thanks to the highest-scoring offense in school history. The Rams scored a school-record 507 points, averaging 36.2 a game and topping 50 four times.

It was downright embarrassing at times for Davis and the other defenders on a CSU team that had held then-No. 1 Alabama without a first down until late in the third quarter of a Sept. 21 game the Rams lost 31-6.

Most of those defenders are back this year, led by senior linebackers Max Morgan, last year’s leading tackler with 134 stops, and Davis, who was second with 120 tackles. Outside linebacker Cory James, a junior who was in on eight sacks and 12 tackles for loss last season, also returns, as do four players in the secondary who started nine or more games: senior cornerback Bernard Blake, junior cornerback DeAndre Elliott, and junior safeties Trent Matthews and Kevin Pierre-Louis.

Even the defensive line, which lost all three of last year’s starters, has its leading tackler back in senior Terry Jackson and two other senior returnees, LaRyan King and Joe Kawulok, who played nearly as many snaps as last year’s starters.

There’s plenty of experience to draw upon and a strong bond formed over the past two seasons. Davis, James and Matthews have been regular starters for the past two years, and Morgan, Elliott, Blake and Pierre-Louis were all starters at times in 2012, too.

So, there’s really no reason the defense shouldn’t be a lot better than it was last season, coach Jim McElwain has said. The Rams shouldn’t be giving up 275.7 passing yards a game or 33 passing touchdowns, more than any other Football Bowl Subdivision team other than Idaho, again this season.

Those numbers have haunted the Rams’ defenders in the offseason, Davis said. But in a good way, motivating players to work harder than ever to get better. They want to be the strength of this year’s team. They want to provide the boost this year that the offense provided last fall.

“As a defense, we want to be more dominant and more consistent,” Davis said. “… We’ve played a lot of football together, we have built chemistry and we all know how to communicate with each other. …